ARTISTS
GK: Sometimes good people do bad things. Here's a public
service message from Artists Serving Time In Schools.
(MJ UN BEL DI, THEN....)
MJ: I was singing the role of Madame Butterfly at an opera
company out west and the idiot conductor did not know
how to give a downbeat ---- he was down there in the pit
waving his arms with his eyes closed and the orchestra was
wandering around like lost sheep and finally I picked up the
tenor and I lifted him over my head and hurled him into the
pit and I didn't mean to kill the maestro but that's what
happened. I was charged with homicide and my attorney
plea-bargained that down to singing with intent to cause
harm, a misdemeanor, and instead of serving time, I did
300 hours of community service in a wonderful
organization called Artists Serving Time In Schools.
TR: At Artists Serving Time In Schools, we enable talented
individuals who've committed heinous crimes to share their
talents with young people rather than sit rotting in prison.
Such as J.R. of San Francisco.
DC: I was a Lutheran church organist and one day the
president of the church council came in while I was
practicing a Bach toccata and he said, "Starting next
Sunday we won't be singing from the hymnal, we'll be
singing praise songs and instead of the organ there will be a
guitarist" and I said, "Get out of here" and shook my fist at
him, not realizing there was a loaded pistol in it. Now,
thanks to ASTIS, instead of going to prison, I teach music
theory to third graders. It makes me feel useful. (PIANO
SCALES, UNDER...)
TR: If a public school near you is lacking an arts program,
maybe we can help. We have a long list of brilliant and
gifted writers, artists, musicians, who need a place where
they can pay their debt to society.
SS: I worked eleven years on my novel and finally turned it
in and my editor read it and he said, "How about I take out
about 100,000 words ---- I mean, it's as long as Moby Dick
but there's no white whale in it" ---- and the next day I was
at the YMCA and I saw him getting out of the swimming
pool. He was all white and dripping wet, all 320 pounds of
him, and I happened to have a long barbecue fork in my
hand and-----
TR: Prison would've done no good for Sarah and luckily
we found a place for her teaching creative writing in middle
school. She's a wonderful teacher, gentle and loyal and
inspirational with children.
FN: I was an actor on a radio show and instead of getting
roles with real substance, roles I could sink my teeth into,
they had me do sound effects, mooing and woofing and
honking like an idiot, and finally after twenty years of this
treatment, my mind snapped----- (WHAP-P-P-P-P-P-P-P).
GK: Easy, Fred. Artists Serving Time In Schools. For good
people who do bad things.